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A DAY AT CASTROGIOVANNI 



A DAY AT CASTROGIOVANNI 

BY 
GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY 



PRINTED FOR THE 

WOODBERRY SOCIETY 

1912 



COPYRIGHT, I 91 2, BY GEORGE E. WOODBERRY 






THE MERRYMOUNT PRESS, BOSTON 



)CI.A346250 



The first of these poems was published in the 
Old Farmer's Almanac^ 1909; the second in 
The Century Magazine^ 1909; and the third 
in The Outlook^ 1910 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/dayatcastrogiovaOOwood 



CONTENTS 

PREFACE 3 

ETNA I I 

PROSERPINE ; BY LAKE PERGUSA I 5 

DEMETER 2 1 



PREFACE 



PREFACE 

THESE poems are the memory of a 
day, May 20, 1908, that I spent at 
Castrogiovannijin Sicily. I left the train the 
day before at a station on the main line, 
and tookthe little diligence thatgoes upby 
a winding road to the town on the moun- 
tain-height, at an elevation of twenty- 
six hundred feet, which has always been 
the central stronghold of Sicily. It is very 
cold there in winter, and the weather was 
still cool ; but the country was green all 
about, and smiling with the abundance of 
May. I found a country-fair going on, with 
a large gathering of the people of the dis- 
tri61:, plainly mountain-folk, quite differ- 
ent in type from the inhabitants of the 
lowlands and coasts, hardier in look, 
physically stronger and larger, v^th fuller 
faces and broader shoulders. Another 
tovsn, Calascibetta, lay gray and silent, 
almost black, on a hill to the west, very 



4 A DAY AT CASTROGIOVANNI 

attra6live to the wandering traveller, and 
at night its lights were very beautiful, like 
an immense glow-worm in the deep dark- 
ness all about. 

The next morning I was awakened, as 
the sonnet tells, by the nightingales sing- 
ing in a wood far below at the foot of the 
cliff that fell from under my windows. 
Dawn was just breaking, and looking out, 
I saw over the expanse of the lowland, at 
a very great distance, Etna, filling the 
eastern sky with its fine mass, single and 
solitary, immense; there was some mist 
far off, under which the long rosy line 
slowly grew distin 61 , with the gold spread- 
ing above, and the sun came up like a 
great moon, and the smoke of the volcano 
was rosy tinged, and the waning moon 
lay off to the right in the clear morning 
sky, almost snow white, as I have de- 
scribed it. 

An hour later I had started in a small 
light wagon, rather rude to look at, on 



PREFACE 5 

a drive to the lake of Pergusa, through 
the valley I have mentioned, and we were 
soon passing down the steep hill-slopes 
and coasting along the foot through fer- 
tile fields of grain, heavy tall crops, with 
a remarkably changeful view of the city 
above, which varied in relative position 
and aspe6l amid the other features of 
the landscape. The horns of the great 
mountain gave to the depression between 
them the form of a saddle, which was very 
striking, with the city seated, as it were, 
there on the high slopes. We arrived at the 
little lake after a pleasant drive through 
a tra6l that was all of the springtime, and 
leaving the wagon at the only house in 
view, set out to stroll over the meadow 
and walk round the pond. The scene was 
quite solitary; there was a low marshy 
edge, with high, dry reeds, which were 
all green below; and many wild birds, 
twittering and singing, kept passing and 
alighting on these swaying reed-tops. 



6 A DAY AT CASTROGIOVANNI 

There were some game-birds that kept 
at a distance, but the passerino and ron- 
dinella were very tame and neighborly ; 
the air was very fresh, a clear sky grow- 
ing hot was flooded with light overhead, 
and the lake was intensely blue, with wind 
on it, — not too much, but enough for 
motion and wave-music. The ground all 
about was full of flowers, — morning- 
glories, hyacinths, yellow marigolds, and 
marguerites, and floods of poppies, almost 
covering the green with their many col- 
ors ; but the strange hue was the contin- 
uous line of dragon-flies in the path, — 
thousands of them, with their blue wings, 
touching one another, so that I a6lually 
waded among them, as it were, and there 
were swarms of them all around keeping 
low to the ground ; they were like smooth 
water round my knees, as I walked. A 
little to one side was the grotto of tradi- 
tion, with a few cypresses, and banks of 
poppies and yellow flowers; there it was, 



PREFACE 7 

as the myth says, that the Rape of Proser- 
pine occurredjOn just such a May morning 
as this, while she was gathering flowers. It 
was just the place for a boy to go hunt- 



ing. 



I got back about noon, and visited the 
site of Demeter's temple on the "moun- 
tain's horn,'' by the old citadel. La Rocca. 
This was the centre and home of the 
worship of Demeter in the earliest times. 
There is nothing there now but the bare 
rock and the splendid view over the fine 
country below as far as Etna. In ancient 
times the scene was more wooded and 
rough, no doubt; for the place was one of 
great natural fertility and of a wild luxu- 
riance, so that tradition says the hounds 
lost the scent of the game in the fragrance 
of the flowers. It is a very noble pros- 
pe6l, I did not go to Calascibetta, allur- 
ing as it was, but left it for another time 
( heaven send the day ! ) , and I explored 
the neighborhood, saw the antiquities. 



8 A DAY AT CASTROGIOVANNI 

talked a little with the people, and came 

away; and these poems are the echo of 

all that. 

G. E. w. 



ETNA 



ETNA 

Bird-wakened out of sleep, my darkling eyes 
Saw Etna bloom and whiten in the dawn, 
While over hollow leagues of crag and lawn 

Brightened earth's edge upon the far-set skies ; 

Now, volleying light, the lucid mountain lies 
Transfigured, in the breath of gold updrawn, 
Dim base to rosy plume ; and high the wan 

Worn moon turns snow, and worships as it dies. 

Then o'er the shoulder of that mount in heaven 
Rose like a moon divine, celestial seen. 

The Star to which all glory hath been given. 
The orb of life whence all things here have been. 

The nightingales sang on, — and I shall see 
No sight so mighty in tranquillity. 



PROSERPINE 

BY LAKE PERGUSA 



PROSERPINE 

BY LAKE PERGUSA 

LyiFTED on hollow lands and grassy miles, 

The lake low-girdled, to all memories sweet. 
Draws heaven to itself ; and wave-flung smiles 
The laughter of the waters in the wheat. 
It is a morn of May 
Before the heat of day; 
The swallow comes among the reeds to drink 
The wind-blown cup of blue amid the green, 
And sings his song ; and near or far is seen 
The plash of wild-fowl on the life-fringed brink. 

See, every step I take 
Stirs up a host of azure dragon-flies ; 
Floored with swift wings the path cerulean lies, 
And round my knees flutters a living lake. 

I pick the flowers that Proserpine let fall, 

Sung through the world by every honeyed muse: 
Wild morning-glories, daisies waving tall, — 
At every step is something new to choose ; 
And oft I stop and gaze 
Upon the flowery maze ; 
By yonder cypresses, on that soft rise 

Scarce seen through poppies and the knee-deep 
wheat, 



l6 A DAY AT CASTROGIOVANNI 

Juts the dark cleft where on her came the fleet 
Thunder-black horses, and the cloud's surprise, 

And he who filled the place. 
Did marigolds bright as these, gilding the mist. 
Drop from her maiden zone? Wert thou last kissed, 

Pale hyacinth, last seen, before his face? 

O swallow, on the rocked reed warbling long. 
Dost thou remember such a morn of May? 
There is a chord of silence in thy song. 

Deepening the hush on which it dies away. 
Ah, flower so pure, so white. 
Winnowing the air like light, 
Whiter than Phosphor in the golden morn, — 
The bright narcissus she was wont to wear, 
The star of springtime shining in her hair, 
Wasted not thus, immortally forlorn; 
Soon will thy soul be ta'en. 
While still the bird's song haunts the warmed sky; 
With all dead flowers that were thy light shall lie ; 
Empty the barley-field, and cut the grain. 

Oh, whence has silence stolen on all things here, 
Where every sight makes music to the eye? 

Through all one unison is singing clear ; 
All sounds, all colors, in one rapture die. 



PROSERPINE 17 

More slow, O heart, more slow ! 
A presence from below 
Moves toward the breathing world from that dark 
deep, 
Whereof men fabling tell what no man knows, 
By little fires amid the winter snows. 
When earth lies stark in her titanic sleep 

And doth with cold expire ; 
He brings thee all, O Maiden, flower of earth, 
Her child in whom all nature comes to birth, 
Thee, the fruition of all dark desire. 

No living eyes have seen him save thine own, 

And hence he bore thee to the dark deep under, 
Far from the beauty of this heaven-bright zone. 
Where the corn ripens in the summer thunder. 
And all things throb, and lave 
In color's rainbow wave. 
Vainly we question things whose home is here : 
No rose that ever bloomed, nor herb of grace 
Crushed with sweet odors, ever saw his face, 
Nor golden lilies laid upon the bier. 

Nor only now I ponder 
Hunger divine that beauty cannot dull ; 
Who beauty loves, his soul is beautiful. 
The master said, and oft on this I wonder. 



18 A DAY AT CASTROGIOVANNI 

Proserpine, dream not that thou art gone 
Far from our loves, half-human, half-divine; 

Thou hast a holier adoration won 

In many a heart that worships at no shrine. 
Where light and warmth behold me, 
And flower and wheat enfold me, 

1 lift a dearer prayer than all prayers past ; 

He who so loved thee that the live earth clove 
Before his pathway unto light and love. 
And took thy flower-full bosom, — who at last 

Shall every blossom cull, — 
Lover the most of what is most our own. 
The mightiest lover that the world has known, 
Dark lover. Death, — was he not beautiful? 



DEMETER 



DEMETER 

Here stood thy temple, on the mountain's horn, 
Lifted high over the subjected plain ; 

Here rose the sower's incense in the morn ; 

Here pealed his loud thanksgiving for the rain. 

Demeter, goddess of the fruitful earth, 

Our Mother of the Wheat, behold thy hearth ! 

Vacant the rock, of every herb swept clean. 
Juts naked in the blue sky, — all is gone ; 

Tall grow the crops beneath ; the fields lie green ; 
The rain cloud has not failed ; the sun has shone. 

Were the hands crazed that reared thy altar-stone 

And laid the first-fruits of the world thereon? 

Long generations knelt in this hoar place 

And filled thy marble hall with prayer and praise ; 

And sire and stripling of the mountain race 
Paid here thy golden dues and went their 
ways,— 

Thy children, — vanished all in Time's advance, — 

Vanished their temple ! O dense ignorance ! 

Yet surely there are gods — thou or another, 
Some happier offspring of eternal mind ; 



22 A DAY AT CASTROGIOVANNI 

Nor halts man's adoration, mighty Mother, 

Nor all his yearning through the world to find ; 
All things have had his worship, — earth, sea, air; 
Oh, unto whom now shall he lift up prayer? 

From old religion and that fair array 
Of beauty and of love once eminent. 

He turned unto the light, clearer than day. 

Within his breast, and thought it heaven-sent ; 

He throned invisible a world ideal ; 

Again the thousand years their will reveal. 

Crescent and Cross, with equal carnage wet. 
Rode a long age the aye-revolving skies ; 

They are declining now ; soon shall they set ; 
But over man shall other heavens arise. 

And other thoughts and other rites appear. 

And other forms shall the old faith endear. 

Temple and shrine have fallen to the ground ; 

Minster and spire by truth deserted lie ; 
Minaret and mosque have heard a far roar sound. 

And tremble in their little squares of sky ; 
All ancient superstition has been doomed — 
Soon shall the stars see the old world entombed. 



DEMETER 23 

The sorceries of midnight and moonshine, 
Brewers of witchcraft, dabbhng in eclipse. 

Went out long since on that dark border-line 
Where the old world into the new world slips ; 

Now go the gods from every land away — 

So great a dawn is broadening into day. 

And gladly we behold the great event 

That frees our cities from the hooded fear; 

And joyfully we take the element 
Of nature for our habitation here ; 

Ours, not another's : but old woes abide ; 

Not yet the soul is wholly purified. 

We will not mourn, deserted by the gods 
By us so much beloved, the gods divine. 

Though on them also fall the solemn clods. 
As on our earthen sleep where we recline ;. 

Ill is he bred, and foolish draws his breath. 

Who has not learned to live life-long with death. 

Once, O Demeter, was thy woe as ours, 

And, like our own, all mortal was thy mood ; 

Then, weeping, thou didst crave through orphaned 
hours 
Holy responses to lorn motherhood ; 



24 A DAY AT CASTROGIOVANNI 

And when thy wandering through the world was 

o'er, 
Men found thee sitting by Eleusis' shore. 

A light was in thy face ; not of our sphere, 
Nor of the world Olympian, that clear beam ; 

And from them passed the old religious fear 
Who there beheld the Resurrection gleam ; 

And thou didst shrine in sacred rites that word 

Which first by us was in thy temple heard. 

Ah, desolate I found that pleasant shore 

Where sat thy temple, once the awe of Greece ; 

From later gods we hold an ampler store. 
And still the granaries of the world increase ; 

But that great word was molded not in vain 

Upon man's lips, the planter of the grain. 

The spirit-thronged world has passed away. 
And shorn of terror is the sun's echpse; 

Science has dulled our wonder day by day ; 
No awe, no silence, lingers on our lips ; 

For deity in things we do not look ; 

Now closed to all the gods is nature's book. 



DEMETER 25 

Yet, though man grows in truth from more to more, 
Old forces through our mystic being sweep ; 

The soul remembereth its holy lore ; 

Some moods habitual to mankind we keep ; 

We believe ; though time forever on the scroll 

Buries the early writing of the soul. 

Lo, I have believed in all the gods in turn. 
And know they have no being but in me ; 

All is the form of what doth inly burn, 
Up from the fetich to eternity ; 

Wherever man doth pray, and finds faith there, 

I kneel beside him and repeat his prayer. 

O Thou of many names, whom I invoke. 

Thought in our souls and breath within our lungs, 

One is the burden of the human yoke. 

Though many are the earth's confused tongues ; 

Christian and Moslem, Buddhist, Pagan, Greek, 

A thousand dialects, the same prayer speak. 

Illusion all ; for only man is real, 

Dreaming on truth through symbols known to 
sense ; 
Of his own heart is formed each new ideal 

That fires the nations with its eloquence ; 



26 A DAY AT CASTROGIOVANNI 

So, spring-like, through the centuries ever ran 
The resurrection of the hope of man. 

Thou wilt not answer, who in us art power ; 

Yet quicker is the beating of my heart, 
Seeing from year to year, and hour to hour, 

The joyful springtime in this old world start, 
And in me feeling the fresh power of man 
Unfold, and recreate what time began. 

For now creation is, not long ago 

In chaos ; chaos reigned not on the deep ; 

Order is all of nature that we know. 

Which, changing all, itself unchanged doth keep ; 

And true creation is the soul's alone — 

A light that grows upon the vast unknown. 

Oh, foul and bloody strife, since time began. 
Up from the beast to man's imperial mold ! 

Oh, long his empire- toil, since he was man. 
The soul's confederation to unfold ! 

And many heavens he scaled, ere Bethlehem's star 

Hymned human love above all gods that are ! 

Man doth prevail, who masters, age by age. 
The secret forces that through nature ply, 



DEMETER 27 

And with the changes of the mind grows sage, — 
Whose faith burns brighter as the old truths die ; 
Truth is the cloud, molded by every storm ; 
Faith, like the rainbow, changes not its form. 

He hath transcended nature — such a flame 
Is nourished on his body ; he shall rise. 

Remembering the altars whence he came, 
To be for all the nations sacrifice ; 

Nor only for far ages is the fruit — 

Eternal beams did in his first loves shoot. 

There is no truth save what to him is known ; 

There is no beauty save within his eye; 
There is no love but what in him has grown, 

And only in his mandate right doth lie ; 
Justice and mercy his, and good and ill. 
And virtue throneless save within his will. . 

No longer outwardly shall godhood shine. 
To tend the flock, the ripened field to thresh ; 

Nor only Christ shall harbor love divine 
Within the tabernacle of our flesh ; 

But every soul shall be that form of grace, 

And universal man love's dwelling-place. 



28 A DAY AT CASTROGIOVANNI 

This is the faith, the crown of many years, 
That long has gathered prescience in his heart ; 

Now shall it run its course through blood and tears 
Wherever from the world the gods depart; 

Sealed by this intuition, over all. 

That truth doth unto resurrection fall. 

Oh, fain to love the gods, the gods divine. 
He clasped unto his breast the phantom fair 

That emanates from nature and doth shine 
From isle and mount on visionary air ; 

And thee he deified, O Mother-Love, 

And throned thee on the rock, his fields above. 

Each race in turn a mighty harvest reaps, 
And shares with gods the glory of its toil ; 

And old divinity forever keeps 

Some portion in the consecrated soil ; 

And what was sacred once is sacred still — 

Lo, great Demeter, I salute thy hill. 

Though born too late to bring unto thy shrine 
From scanty stores a poor man's offering. 

The empire of another world is mine. 
Whose only treasure is the lyre I bring ; 

I lay it down upon the naked rock. 

And on thy gates invisible I knock. 



DEMETER 29 

Giver of the Corn, thy child is dead, 

And Greece lies buried by the sounding sea ; 
A greater sun uprears a mightier head 

On a new land where many oceans be ; 
And where the bison and the reindeer ran, 
A world of wheat renews the hope of man . 

1 thank thee for our food through sun and rain, 

The summer's wealth, the winter's garnered 
store ; 
I thank thee for the rising of the grain ; 

And ever thee I thank, and more and more, 
For the hope hid in kernels of the corn. 
Great Mother, vanished from the mountain's horn. 



THE END 



THREE HUNDRED COPIES OF THIS BOOK HAVE BEEN 
PRINTED FOR THE WOODBERRY SOCIETY. SEVENTY- 
FIVE ARE NUMBERED AND SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR 



APR 18 1913 



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